


Prism

by Akaisha_Loire



Category: Fear the Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Ending-Fix It, Fluff, Happy Ending, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-26
Updated: 2018-09-26
Packaged: 2019-07-17 17:56:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16100810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Akaisha_Loire/pseuds/Akaisha_Loire
Summary: Soulmates.They were kind of superfluous given the state of the new world.





	Prism

**Author's Note:**

> Just a short and sweet soulmates piece, because every fandom needs at least three different soulmate AUs, and I'm a sucker for them.
> 
> So please, enjoy!

Soulmates. 

They were kind of superfluous given the state of the new world.

Nobody cared if you could only see black or white, or see in color, because when it all came back to it, the only difference that mattered was the living and the dead.

Nick never had his soulmate. He doesn’t know the fire is red, and orange, and yellow, or that the curtains his mom had picked right before everything went to hell were a lovely shade of burgundy. He didn’t know these colors, all he knew were shades of grey on top of black, on top of white, because he didn’t have a soulmate.

Gloria, may she rest in peace, swore she saw color around Nick, but she could never tell him the color of the drug they so lovingly coveted; he’d heard it was a pale yellowish color, but he didn’t know.

They were certainties in the world. Travis was his mom’s soulmate, and together they awe’d over the blues of the oceans, the bluest they’d ever seen the further south they went. He knew that Alicia couldn’t see color same as him, neither could Chris, but Strand did, Ofelia could, Daniel did not, telling them he once could but it was gone with his wife. Apparently, and Nick didn’t know, when the soulmate died, so did the color, which gave Ofelia hope with each passing day she noted the blue of the sky, sometimes dampening to grey with incoming storm clouds. 

People like him, people without soulmates, they were made for this world, this world where they didn’t have a second half of themselves to lose, and thus didn’t hold things as dear to them.

It's easy to walk away, under the blackening of the sky, painted by flames of varying greys as the farm burns around them. It’s easy to walk through the desert with nothing but grey, on top of grey, knowing there’s nothing left for him in the world. Death is easy when there’s nothing to lose.

Then, there’s Luciana. Wonderful, amazing, tough as nails, Luciana, and the Colonia, the first place since the world went to shit that he could call home. Luciana who just had to be his soulmate, even though she could not see color, same as him. She didn’t know the wrapper of the tasty cake his stole was orange, neither of them did till a boy, no more than ten, yelled the color out, a little girl taking his hand, pulling him back to the game.

It’s cruel, really, someone so young had found their match, and yet, they waited.

He’d heard before that the change isn’t always immediate. His mom swore that it was color at first sight on Travis’ part, but it had taken her longer, till their third date for color to bleed into her life.

Nick waited.

They kissed, they made love, they found love in each other, and with each passing day, each passing week he saw nothing more than the same stagnant shades of grey that had always been there.

He’s sure, positive, that when he fights, begs, pleads, to take the Colonia, to lead them to the border, to safety, that something will pop in his eyes, that something will trigger, as if telling him, that Luciana was the absolute for him. He waits, day by day for her to tell him she sees a red car, or something that told him color had come to her life, but she never does, and soon, there’s nothing but death surrounding them. The Colonia gunned down by overzealous, racists at the border that have no interest in anyone crossing over.

Luciana is hurt, dying, and all Nick cares about is getting help. All the assholes on the base care about is timing death. 

The leader, Troy, in particular seems manic, obsessed, Nick finds it to be poetic justice when the man gets a spoon in his eye courtesy of his mother.

They survive, day to day, and no one cares about color on the ranch, except for Troy, who likes to boast about the things he can see to the people who can not. The cows are brown, the chickens are white with hints of yellow just under their feather. Carrots are orange and strawberry are a pinkish red color. He’s a child, parading around with some poor half-wit of a human being that has the dishonor to be his soulmate.

Luciana leaves the ranch, and there’s nothing for Nick, except the ranch. Alicia swears color is bleeding into her vision, courtesy of Jake Otto, who sees color instantly around Alicia. Alicia says it’s faint, like the color is hesitant to enter her vision and she’s sees everything in pastel; it’s a step more than what Nick has.

Then things change, one morning the world is alive, and it startles him, literally startles him so much that he falls onto the floor in shock; the brown floor, with his red blanket.

He runs outside in nothing but his fatigue pants, looking at the world that’s been sparked rainbow, like a flint sparks flame. The sky is blue this morning, with just a tinge of grey from clouds slowly moving in, maybe there’s rain. The hills are browns and yellows from the dirt, with hints of red that might be clay.

He runs to his mom, his mom in a blue flannel shirt, such a contrast to the blue of the denim on her legs and he laughs, and then cries because he can see color, he just doesn’t know how. Yesterday, there had been nothing, and today, there was everything. It’s the greatest and worst experience of his life, because he doesn’t know where it came from.

There was no color in his life just twenty four hours ago, and the last thing he remembered was fighting Troy, taking his notebook and ripping it, Troy laughing, and saying they could be friends, and then he was out, down for the count, making his way back here on auto, till he fell into bed.

Yesterday there was nothing, today he had a prism.

No matter what happens on the ranch, the color stays. It doesn’t change.

His mom is thrilled for him, despite having lost her own color when Travis was killed by Walker. She doesn’t hold it against him, and eagerly asks him day by day if he can still see the world, as if his happiness is all she cares about. And he can.

People die, none of them were his soulmate; the color stays.

Things change, war is threatened, more die, and nothing changes.

Even Ofelia is found, a bitter woman having lost her one hope in the world, gone was the color in her vision. She was hurt, in agony, but still the Ofelia they knew, if not tougher, stronger with a thirst to prove herself, but not at the cost of losing her soul.

There’s sickness and death. Death and sickness, and nothing changes.

Troy is exiled, Nick, locked away, and though he sees Troy in the dehydration muddled hallucinations, he sees him only in color.

Nick’s soulmate is somewhere on the ranch, resilient, strong against adversity, death proof, like Nick. 

It starts to become painfully clear that there’s only one person in his life that the color could attach itself to. The one person who ran straight to him, not Jake, when the hoard was coming to destroy the ranch. The person he protected from Jake, ultimately ending Jake’s life. The person that was somehow like a fungus, growing, leaching into Nick’s life until he doesn’t know how he didn’t see it sooner.

He didn’t see color first, but Troy did.

Troy, who had been so enamored by him from the start but never once called for his death despite his constant taunts of his track marks. Troy had gone out of his way to ensure the survival of the man who brought light into his life.

It’s Troy that he races into that helicopter with, and it’s Troy that he goes with to tail Alicia.

It’s all Troy. Everything, since the day he crossed the border, and suddenly, the soulmates thing made perfect sense.

And when Troy jokes, teases him about loving him, about staying at Broke Jaw because of him, he can’t help but ask, “Was it always from the beginning?”

“From the second you looked at me,” he said, not even bothering to pretend like he doesn’t know what Nick is talking about. “Never thought I had one..then this little twat comes sauntering over the border..”

“Dick,” Nick curses, reaching over and punching him.

He wants this. He never realized he wanted it or even needed it till he had it, knew where the prism was hanging.

He’s willing to share everything of himself with Troy, even his dark obsessions, his need to walk through death with the man at his side until Troy is hugging him, keeping him close. Even in the cloudy haze of his drug induce fanaticism, he knows he wants to kiss Troy, wants to know what it’s like to be with his soulmate.

That night, he gets it, he gets why people cling to their soulmates. He understands why he can’t leave Troy’s side. Understands why it’s so easy to tell his mom he’s staying at the bazaar with Troy, living with his soulmate. It’s even easier to accept Troy’s test, to see the darkness in his mom heart, who Nick knows has been manipulating him from the start.

It hurts to see her hit him, but the color doesn’t fade. This is their plan.

They’ll be together, like they should have always been, thriving in this new world.

No fear greets him when he blows the dam, only anticipation. Anticipation in the yellow of the day that refuses to fade to grey now that he has the color.

It was foolish, stupid, idiotic, and a thousand other adjectives he couldn’t express, but the moment he met Troy, on the other side of the border, safe in California, with his family off where they would be, he knows he’s making the right choice. He can’t explain it to them, they wouldn’t understand, with him and Troy, it’s so much more than just colors, it’s so much more than a red string that binds them together.

He feels it, to his very core, with every step and breath, that Troy is where he’s meant to be.

And if one day they’re to go out, they’ll go out together, till the color fades from their vision.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you guys enjoyed. All kudos and comments are super appreciated!


End file.
